The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1887-02-19
IIl2l5lil'S I8T York Letter.
sDeclal 10 lhe CAnnoN ADvocArn.

Ai'9 thVNodllu uleu on llc slilhe AM
more going out every dayl What docs il
mean? They are Offering the men along
shore, and indeed a majority of those out
thirty cent an hour for day work and sixty
cents an hour for nj ght work, and itrequire,
but very limited knowledge of arithmeti,
to figure UP the loss to the strikers at on,
hundred and City thousand dollars a day
This is not very far from o million dollars
a week, and they have now been on til,
strike nearly four weeks. Such dreadful
drain as this would have tried the combined
capital Of this nation, and would soon force
the mighticst representative of capital il
the world into bankruptcy. How heavy i:
the evil on those who have no capital buI
their daily earnings, and with whom tin,
weeks wages are mortgaged before they
are received! 1t would be bad enough il
this suffering was precipitated on the poor
in summer, but in the freezing winter the
calamity is doubled.
And now let us ask ourselves why thou.
sands of poor people are suffering for want
Of food and perishing for want of coal!
/ Why is the commerce of New York and
Brooklyn paralyaed? Why are men assembl
ed in the streets? Why spropcrty destroyed
and lives threatened? \ couple of hundred
coal handlers in a small town away from
| New York demand twenty-five cents an
hour instead of twenty. The company in.
sist that the demand was never made be
! tore the men quit work. The demand
would have added twenty ccnts.a day lC
each mans wages. Now It is pretty safe
calculation that each one of these two
/ hundred men who struck drink five glasses
of lager beer each day, for around all Of
these coal dumps the saloon las heavy
mortgage on the laborer's wages at the END
of the week, and that mortgage is always
settled before the claims of the butcher
the grocer or the landlord are considered
So that if these men had sacrificed theii
| beer they would have been Just as rich as
| they were before. and we would have hat
no strike; but you say the rich mine-owncr,
might have advanced the men the extra q
cents day, and then there would hayC
been no strike. So they might but the,
did not, and between them both we are
made to suffer. There is no denying the
fact that the trouble was rrccipilated ii
/ the first place by the coal barons BY q
| very limited combination of few com.
panics and their roads, they control the
coal consumption of the entire United
/ States. This amounts annually to hundred,
| of millions of tons. They met last Fail am
resolved to advance the price of Goa
twenty-five cents per ton. They were
already receiving Immense profits on thcil
investments, and by that single resolution
they added over 4 hundred millions of do,.
lars to their already enormous profits, an
added it to the coal consumed alike by the
rich and poor. When the working mel
heard of the advance they proposed to share
its benefits and hence their demand of two
cents ton on which the capitalists had
advanced fifty. Now come the complica
tons! On this strike eight men ont Of ten
have no complaints to make. They have
all the wages they ask; the hours Of labor
are entirely satisfactory; they confess that
their employers have used them well, but
they have determined TO paralyEe all kind>
of trade till those two hundred coal hand
ierS get their two cents an hour.
Last week the Government laborers who
were receiving thirty cents an hour struck
fn
Treasury Immediately ordered the advance,
ana although the men had no grievance t.
complain of they refused to go to work.
Several OF the strikes have been to comnel
the employers to take back men whom
they have discharged. The men insist on
the employers taking their fellow workmen
back whether they want them orno-that
is to say, they will give the workman per
feet freedom to say who his employer shall
be; but they deny to the employer the right
which they claim for themselves, thereby
making him virtually slave. 1t would
seem on the commonest principle of ius-
tice that, if the man is free to work for
whom he will, and to come and 20 when
he p!cases, subject to no control whatever,
that the same rights which he claims for
himself should be accorded to the employer.
Let the motto be emblazoned on the ban
ncrs of the workingmcn:
Equal and Exact Justi e to al, Employer
and Employed.
1t is pretty evident that matters cannot
go on very long as they are at present. and
whatever way the battle is decided it will
be some time before either side will be will
ing to enter a struggle like that which now
entails such dreadful suffering on thous-
and5 and thousands who had no hand in
prccipitaling the strike.
A very eminent literary gentleman, in
writing on the labor troubles, suggests as
panacca, education, and | think Long
Island would not be bad place to begin
the experiment. Those who are deeply
vcrsed in geography are doubtless aware
that Long Island is a neck of land which
stretches out in an eaStcrly direction about
one hundred and thirty miles from the
Goodly city OF Brooklyn. 1t was originally
settled by the Dutch, and their descendants
are to be found to this day settled on the
same farms where their ancestors squaltel
in the time of Wculer Won Broom. a SUI
burb of Brooklyn is the delightful village
Of PcarsalIs, and one Of its principal mag
mates is II. J. Mott who is one Of the
present school trustees. A gentleman by
would be a delightful place to live in, and.
acting on the thought, abandoned his home
in Brooklyn and moved into the country.
1t did not take him long to discover that
the educational advantages of his new home
were not equal to those he had left behind
The school was not warmed, and he was
not satisfied with the teachers, and finally